by Anne Renwick
All hope of a bright future had died the day the Russians captured him. Turned into a laboratory rat, the damage done to his liver by that vicious pathogen was irreparable. Whatever resurrection of good health this final treatment of dragon’s blood had brought him, it wouldn’t last. But he’d make the best of it while he could.
Both in and out of Natalia’s bed. An opportunity for which he’d never dared hope.
Smiling, Luke threw back the covers and swung his stocking-clad feet over the edge of the bed. He pulled on his boots. A glance in a mirror revealed that the whites of his eyes were a most disturbing yellow. And he smelled. That he could fix. He rubbed a hand across the rough stubble of his beard. The judicious application of a razor wouldn’t be amiss either.
Ignoring the ewer of water on a nearby table, he grabbed his rucksack, snagged a sword for himself and made his way to his old bedchamber above the kitchens. All was as he’d left it. He pulled a skeet pigeon from his trunk, dashed off a brief note explaining the situation and requesting immediate assistance from the department. After winding the mechanism, he tossed the mechanical bird from the window, praying it would reach Edinburgh and his supervisor without delay.
Luke grabbed clean clothes, a linen towel and located his razor. Passing through the kitchens, he snagged the extra key to the postern door and headed out. In the courtyard, Natalia trained a young man, making the adolescent work for every touch he won. He hesitated. Perhaps he shouldn’t leave them here alone? No. He shook his head. There wasn’t the slightest chance the hunter had recovered yet from his venom-laced claw wounds. He’d be lucky if those medieval arrows didn’t cause sepsis. Regardless, Luke would wash quickly.
He slipped out the postern door, locking it behind him, and made his way down a path to the river’s edge. Assuring himself there was no audience, he set down his rucksack and stripped bare. He tossed his clothes across the hull of an overturned boat that sat on the riverbank, half-consumed by weeds, then waded in, quickly applying soap and razor before making his way onto the shore to dress.
As Luke climbed back toward the castle rubbing the towel over his hair, the unmistakable sound of lovemaking met his ears. He must have veered down a different fork of the path.
There was a gasp of horror, and he yanked away the cloth, turning, attempting to cast his gaze down—anywhere but at the two lovers. Alas, he failed.
Aileen half-sat upon a moss-covered wall of a rubble-strewn ruin with her skirts hiked up about her waist. A man, his arms wrapped about her, his trousers undone and shoved low about his hips, lifted his mouth from her neck. Both faces flushed with interrupted lust and embarrassment.
“Sorry. So, so sorry.” And he was, very much so. Not once had he ever wished to gaze upon Aileen’s bare bosom. Jaw slack, he began to turn away—except the man’s face was familiar.
A scene flashed to mind. Luke upon his knees while guards surrounded him, each pointing a loaded musket at his chest. Their captain striding over the cave’s rocky ledge, barking questions in Russian that he hadn’t understood. A strike to the side of his head that had split his lip and dropped him to the ground. Rough manacles biting into his wrists as he was dragged away. A key turning in a lock, imprisoning him in the Ural Zavód. This was the man who had stolen his freedom.
“You!” Luke tossed aside his rucksack and drew the sword slung upon his hip, retreating as fast as the uneven and root-tangled ground allowed. But a single infusion of dragon’s blood could not undo all the damage of those endless months locked inside the Ural Zavód. He was at a decided disadvantage.
Misha Ivanov—Aileen’s lover—also drew a blade. A shorter, curved knife. He lashed out. Only the man’s need to pull up his trousers kept his knife from slicing through Luke’s throat.
“Michael!” Aileen called, yanking her bodice back into place and flapping at her rucked skirts. “Stop! He’s… a friend.”
Ivanov ignored her, crouching low as he circled around Luke, looking for an opportunity to strike. And found it. He lunged, slashing his blade at Luke’s stomach.
Luke deflected the attack with his sword. Clang. Reverberations jolted up his arm, jarring his shoulder and nearly making him lose his grip. This would end badly. Ivanov’s skills might not be on par with Natalia’s, but this former soldier was also stronger, murderous, and completely devoid of empathy.
Again, Ivanov rushed toward him. This time, luck wasn’t on Luke’s side. He blocked the worst of the strike, but the tip of the curved blade sliced through his shirt, through the skin of his left bicep. A sharp tear of pain. Blood, warm and sticky, soaked his sleeve.
He stumbled. The next slash came hard upon the last. There was no chance he could win this fight. No chance he’d survive to warn Natalia that Rathail’s hunter wasn’t the only threat. The Russians had ferreted out their location.
His face an emotionless mask, Ivanov swung his blade down toward Luke’s shoulder. A teeth-rattling screech rent the air as their blades slid past each other and caught at the hilts. Arm shaking, Luke struggled to hold off the Russian. With every last ounce of his strength, he shoved the man backward.
A fleeting victory. Ivanov’s lip curled, and he lunged forward. Luke leapt backward, but his foot caught upon a tree root and he fell. Exposed.
“Michael!” Aileen ran forward, stumbling to a halt before her lover, her arms spread wide. “Please. Luke won’t,” she blushed a furious crimson, “say anything about… about what we were doing. Not to my grandfather or anyone else.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Will you?”
Sad, that he’d been reduced to hiding behind a woman’s skirts, grateful for her defense. He and Ivanov had crossed blades but three times and his chest heaved with the effort. Had he refused the dragon’s blood, he’d already be a corpse upon the path. He clapped a palm over the gash in his arm. The cut was deep enough to require stitches.
“Of course not.” Luke himself would do his best to wipe the vision of the Russian mixing work with pleasure from his memory. His concerns lay elsewhere. If Ivanov had been in the village long enough to seduce Aileen, then he wanted more from Natalia than her dragon.
Shit.
Ivanov lowered his arm. “You are certain?” Almost a convincing Scottish accent. A man who could blend into his environment so well was more than a mere guard.
“Go,” Aileen said. She stepped closer and kissed her beau on the cheek.
His free hand fell upon her hip, and he pulled her close, whispering into her ear, all while keeping a close eye on Luke. Her face paled, but she nodded. Ivanov slid something from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. She swallowed, then tucked the item into a small pouch tied at her waist.
Releasing her, Ivanov slid his knife back into its sheath and stalked over to Luke’s rucksack. He opened it and proceeded to examine each item within as if it might be a direct threat to his lady love. But there was only one item inside that held any value to Luke. And, damn him, Ivanov found it. With a nasty grin stretching across his face, the Russian pulled out the paper packet of milk thistle seed, flicked open its paper flap, and dumped the contents onto the ground.
Luke cursed, but dared not raise further objection.
“Nothing.” Dropping the rucksack to the ground, Ivanov looked to Aileen—his inside woman—and nodded. “You will let me know if he causes you any trouble?”
“Immediately.”
With a brief kiss to her lips, the Russian took his leave, disappearing around the bend. He stalked off into the forest, headed who knew where. Worry twisted Luke’s stomach. Two men in this corner of Scotland with an interest in dragons was two men too many. Without assistance, escaping the castle unnoticed would be difficult if not impossible.
Aileen stooped to stuff Luke’s possessions back into his bag. “I’m sorry. My fiancé is fiercely protective. You rather took us by surprise.” Her face was bright red, and she didn’t meet his eyes.
He stood, slowly and painfully sheathing his
sword. Imagining Ivanov as protective of anyone but himself made him shake his head. “Fiancé?” he repeated. He tore a strip of cloth from the hem of his shirt, cringing as he bound the bleeding gash. A makeshift bandage until he could locate a needle and thread.
“Grandfather will warm to him,” she said, catching Luke by his elbow and leading him along the path. “Soon, when Michael concludes his negotiations to invest in the textile mill upriver, we will marry.”
Luke glanced at Aileen. Her chin was lifted and her shoulders pulled back. Proud and working hard to convince herself such an event would come to pass. Determined enough that she’d let Ivanov—er—lift her skirts in the woods, an unwise risk. He should warn her—would warn her—after he’d spoken with Natalia. For now, he would watch his words around the young woman.
“Hold it higher,” Natalia instructed William, expecting she might regret teaching him this maneuver. Though she’d given their practice session her all, he’d bested her twice today already. Not only had he grown three inches this past winter, his body had begun to take on the hard, angular planes of manhood. “Turn your wrist a touch to the right. Yes, like that. Now thrust the blade toward your enemy’s bowels.”
“Like this?” William lunged at the straw figure set up inside the courtyard.
“Exactly like that.” There wasn’t much more she could teach him. Regret tinged her smile. She was proud of her student but needed to terminate their lessons. Not only did Luke’s arrival mean she needed to plan for their departure, it had drastically altered her plans for today’s laboratory work.
Her last set of experiments had indicated that she was close to synthesizing a modified version of dragon’s venom, but something about the structure was wrong, possibly the isomerism. But she’d come closer to unlocking its exact composition than she’d ever managed in Russia when her supervisors had rolled their eyes at her efforts—heart disease, why work to treat the useless elderly?—but tolerated her because of her father, whose brilliance was much prized.
Luke’s health came first, and he had no need of a drug to lower his blood pressure. So instead of refining dragon’s venom—a purification process useful both for her research and for coating the tips of arrows—she needed to assess, then rearrange and adapt her equipment to suit a cell biology project.
“That’s enough for today,” she said.
Would her father be proud of her, or horrified that she’d held back his breakthrough from the scientific world? She tugged at her scarf, wishing she could unwind it and toss it away. Too long she’d been hiding, protecting secrets inside thick stone walls. Her life in Castle Kinlarig was a lonely one. Luke’s renewed presence had served to underscore that fact. And though she did not wish to return to Russia, she missed interacting with like-minded scientists. Here—in a quiet corner of Scotland—she was cut off from all news of innovations in her field, from all academic conversations that might inform her own work.
Not that she wished to abandon Zia, but with assistance, with someone else to oversee the dragon, she would be free to travel to Edinburgh, to rejoin the research world and learn what advancements had been made while she was hidden away. She longed to take on another project—one not tied to dragons—so she might discuss her work and publish her findings.
Shoulders slumping, William held the rapier out—hilt first—to her.
Reflexively, Natalia reached for it. Then stopped. “Keep it.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.” With a nod, she continued. “You’re ready. That fencing studio you wish to open in Edinburgh? If your uncle was serious about allowing you to work for him, to set up a studio in the back of his warehouse, it’s time. You’ve my permission to take a selection of weapons and armor from the great hall.”
William’s grin nearly split his face in two, but his excitement was quickly followed by suspicion. “Why?” His eyes narrowed. “Are you leaving? Did something happen to your dragon?”
A few villagers had guessed the truth. Mostly children as they were the ones able to set aside disbelief. She’d caught a few prowling the castle grounds, hoping for a glimpse, but William had taken it one step further. He’d pestered McKay—a great uncle of sorts—to allow him to work within the castle walls from time to time, assisting with all the odd jobs that required more strength than the butler had left to him.
Natalia wagged a finger back and forth. “You know nothing about such a creature. Hush.” Only a promise of lessons in swordsmanship had convinced William to stop pestering her with questions about dragons… and to discourage other young visitors. “There’s a man in the village who wishes to capture her. I cannot let that happen, and so I must leave to take her elsewhere.”
“But you promised I could meet her someday.” His voice held a hint of a boyish whine. “And if you’re leaving…”
So she had. “Let me see what I can arrange.”
As per her agreement with the Department of Cryptozoology, she kept Zia carefully hidden away in the laboratory whenever William—a non-resident—was inside the castle’s walls. But they’d terminated her funding, so perhaps such strict secrecy was no longer binding. After all, William had made himself as essential as McKay and Aileen.
“About that man,” William began, his voice eager. “The one you shot an arrow through, he might have an assistant now. There’s a new hunter in town. I can follow him to the pub tonight, find out why he’s here.”
An assistant? The tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose. “No. Stay away. Far away.”
“I’ll only listen…”
“I’d rather you not become tangled in whatever—” The postern door opened and Luke and Aileen entered. She’d seen them both leave, but individually. Her eyebrows drew together. Both looked rumpled and— Luke was bleeding. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she had to choke back a cry of distress as she rushed in their direction. William followed behind her. “What happened?”
Luke glanced at the young man and frowned. “A small disagreement with Aileen’s fiancé.” He pressed his lips together and gave a small shake of his head.
Aileen’s mouth flattened. “He was defending my honor.”
“William,” Natalia said. “Time to go. Be certain McKay locks the castle gate behind you.”
“Aww,” William objected, but he turned and did as his fencing master bid him, proudly carrying away his weapon.
Wrinkling her nose against the noxious odor of the thin, watery soup—cabbage with parsnips this time—simmering upon the surface of the stove, Natalia set a tea kettle to boil. “Have we any whisky?”
“Some.” Aileen placed a sewing kit upon the table, dropped a rag beside it, then—twisting her lips in disapproval—fetched the bottle. “But from the look of his eyes, Mr. Dryden’s liver is pickled enough.” She crossed her arms and frowned. “What is it with all the swords? Have none of you ever fired a pistol?”
“The antique weapons in Castle Kinlarig were collected for display,” Natalia answered. “No one thought to stock gunpowder or the appropriate bullets. Items hard to justify on a restricted budget. Not to mention the alarming possibility of a misfire. Such old weapons are unreliable.”
“Swords still function when they’re wet, and one needn’t stop to reload,” Luke added, grimacing as he rolled his sleeve above his wound. “And mine was taken from me…” He lifted his gaze to Natalia’s.
In the Ural Mountains. She didn’t need him to say it aloud.
Pouring the last of the whisky into a glass, she dropped the needle and thread into the alcohol before blotting Luke’s arm. The wound wasn’t too deep and, despite the mud on his trousers, he smelled clean and fresh, like clear river water. A vast improvement. She slid her gaze sideways. Aileen, other the other hand… “Care to explain what happened?”
Aileen’s bodice gaped and strands of hair floated loose from her
coiffure. Color rose high upon her cheeks. “Michael was taken by surprise and overreacted. Nothing to fret about. Mr. Dryden will be fine.”
A gross understatement, given he required stitches. Luke’s immune system was already compromised. An infected wound was the last thing he needed. But she bit back the comment. “Did Michael at least agree to call the banns?”
Shifting on her feet, Aileen looked away. “We were about to discuss that when—” She shoved a handful of cloth strips into Natalia’s palm. “You have this under control. I need to…” Hand flapping, she fled the kitchens. Natalia laughed. “Did you catch them—”
“I did.” Luke pulled a face. “Horrifying enough, but we have another problem.” He craned his neck to be certain Aileen was out of earshot. “Her fiancé’s name isn’t Michael, it’s Misha. Misha Ivanov.”
Chapter Six
She glanced up sharply. “Misha Ivanov. A Russian.” Her heart began to pound. They’d found her.
Two years ago she would have questioned the presence of any man who wandered so freely about the edges of her property. But when Aileen mentioned he was in the wool industry and negotiating to purchase cloth produced at the mill upstream, Natalia had dismissed him without another thought. Stupid of her.
“You’re being watched,” Luke said. “Closely. Do you know him?”
Natalia shook her head. “No. We’ve not met. Nor is the name familiar.” Though her insides had turned to jelly, the cut in his arm required her immediate attention. She took a deep breath and pinched the two halves together. “How—exactly—do you know him?” She braced herself for the answer.
“He was the man who caught me, a guard from the Ural Zavód.” Luke hissed as the sharp steel bit through his skin, but he didn’t move. “No, more than a guard, though I’m not certain what to call him. Agent? Spy?”
